How NOT to lead (personal experience rant)....

[uhsieh]

While this post will probably mark me as a “bad NA player” :sweat: , I want to share this experience with all of you guys.

I was in the Dunes last night leveling my War job. I was just level 19 at that point, which means that I’m a bit high for the rest of the Party. The party consists of an 18 Taru Thf/Mnk, an 18 Galk Rdm/Whm, an 18 Hume Drk/War, and a 17 Rdm/none. The last member was at first an 18 Pld/War, but he left soon.

It was a pickup party, and as things go, it was a not bad one, though we need more healing power. We knew what we were doing and was able to hit skill chains most of the time. Though I think everyone was tired while playing.

Anyway we were trying to figure out what to kill at first, and we started to camp at Whitebone Sand Beach. We were killing Pugils with little difficulty, though the healers invariably spend most of their MP in one fight. When the Pld left, we decided to start fighting Snippers while the new member runs over. We soon found a Crab Apron for the Rdm/none, and since we were not really getting good XP (well, 150+ from each but much down time) from the Pugils, I suggested that we go kill Flies. That apparently was not agreeable to everyone involved, though many voiced that it was okay to go kill flies, and so we moved to kill flies. Well, to make a long story short the Party disintegrated within minutes of that.

Now, since I was the de facto leader of the group, what should or shouldn’t have done to keep the group in one piece? Should I have not moved to the group to start fighting the flies until everyone agreed? I think that I was not the best leader out there, but I want to improve. Any suggestion on how to improve would be much, much appreciated. Thanks.

Also, sorry about the long Rant.

[Dalmonth]

I'd thrown a plasma gernade to that RDM's ass and blown him to the 7th level of hell

[Jonnyram]

Lv20? Move to Jeuno and forget about it. You should really have stuck to pugils, but your party was pretty pathetic to just leave you without even trying what you suggest.

[kumaeru]

How is that a rant or a complaint ??

Sorry but stuff happens.. doesnt make you a good or bad leader.
If you're PT says ok.. then O K!

IMO you didnt do anything wrong, and you're pt disintegrated because either people didnt like very high amounts of downtime (at lower lvls it's not like people are avidly chaining 5's etc. anyways). Or they had to leave for whatever reasons.

At earlier lvls, exp = exp doesn't really matter how long it takes, just that it goes by smoothly. Higher the lvl you go, people start watching how much exp you get an hour. And if you get around 1.5k exp/hr then the PT is bad. Usually in a decent pt you get at least 2k/hr. Then you get GOOD PT's where you get about 3k-5k exp an hour. Those... are nice. ^_^



When you get to higher lvls, you will notice that people will "meet up" in Jueno and not the area where people lvl. That is because there is more than one area that is popular to lvl then. And the PT decides what area to lvl, based on the Jobs and WS' that are available in the PT. And there is almost always a Rdm or a Brd in the PT, for Refresh/Dispel spells and songs.

[Jei]

leading can be hard sometimes especially when you can't make a full group and kill an enemy that matches your level range. To make a good leader I would say you have to be able to come up with

1. what job to invite. balance group is important.
2. where to hunt.
3. what to kill.
4. what skillchain to use.

these 4 you can gather information from many places. Ask LS, talk to PT, do a search and see where the people similar to your levels are hunting, search the web, etc. Which ever way you choose you'll need to come up with a conclusion.

Now a good members should allow the leader to make desicion. Argue if not agree is what we expect. But leaving the group because the group decide to do something different than his plan is too bad. very bad actually

Talking about uncooperative members... there's no way around I guess. Gotta deal with it :sweat:

[uhsieh]

I didn’t mean to complain, it’s just something that happened to me that I wish to share with people, hope to gain some advice and insights in how to be a better leader. I guess one of the first things I have to work on is my communication skill. :sweat:

The main reason why I thought I was at fault was that I started the group as a level up party, and we stuck to this pretty well until I suggested (more like bugged) that we help the Rdm with his/her SJ items. I suppose the reason why I wanted to do that was that someone else really went out of their way to help me with mine.

I guess I was expecting myself to be like the leaders I’ve been under. I’ve been pretty lucky in the fact that I have been in more good parties than bad.

I’m hoping that someday I could be a good party leader as well. But maybe I was just expecting too much for a first time leader. Thanks for the advices above.

P.S. The party really fell apart about 1 1/2 hour before the emergency Maintenance. But we could have allowed some of the members to level up before the maintenance if things didn't go bad.